Longmont's fiber buildout to start by mid-August

By Scott Rochat

Times-Call staff writer

Posted:
07/15/2014 07:11:45 PM MDT

Updated:
07/15/2014 07:12:46 PM MDT

The big fiber-optic rollout is less than a month away.

According to the contract signed by Longmont Power & Communications and TCS Communications of Englewood, construction work on the citywide high-speed network must begin by Aug. 13. That's 30 days from the "notice to proceed" that TCS received on Monday.

The company was one of four firms that expressed interest in the project, submitting a winning bid of $20,095,022. The work will be done in phases and is expected to be finished in 2017.

The heart of the system, a 17-mile fiber-optic loop, was built in 1997. As the citywide network is built out, LPC plans to provide upload and download speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second to subscribing homes and businesses.

A business plan commissioned in 2013 predicted the fiber-optic system would pay for itself in about 10 years. That assumed that 35 percent of Longmont residents became LPC telecom customers, even though one survey conducted for the city suggested that 68 percent would consider switching if the service were cheaper than their current provider.

Longmont voters approved a $45.3 million bond issue in 2013 to speed the fiber-optic rollout. Besides construction costs, LPC also plans to add staff to get the new utility up and running — as many as 35 new employees at its peak, before settling down to 27 new employees in year 5, according to a June estimate.